Morning Cup
by PolarisWhatever
Summary: aka The Disappearance of Bertie Wooster. Lately, Bertie Wooster has been haunted by the most unsettling feeling. The feeling that he's losing his mind. Dark themes, slash.


_!Slightly revised version, hopefully there shouldn't be too many mistakes left!_

**Morning Cup**

or The Disappearance of Bertie Wooster

by Candleinthebox

Rating: M

Warnings: Putting a list of warnings here would actually spoil the whole fic, which is why I won't. However, remember to mind the rating, and that dark, dark and twisted things are afoot.

Third person narration, partly the cowardly way out of having to write completely in Wodehouse style. It's a real handful when you're not a native speaker, and I'm scared of murdering it with a chainsaw in my pathetic attempts. So I'll be shoving artistic license in your face, and tentatively brewing my own thing with a few hints of The Master's style thrown along for the ride. It's an experiment.

Disclaimer: As far as I know, I'm female, there's consequently little chance that I could be P.G. Wodehouse. That, and the fact that he's dead. As far as I know.

Hoping you will enjoy this little piece of nonsense. Now, let us start with the actual story…

XXX

It doesn't happen out of the blue. It's a slow process, a gradual progression, like a small ball rolling slowly, oh so very slowly, but inexorably on a downward slope. Many people like to say that there are many sharper tools in the box than Bertie Wooster when it comes to intellectual prowess, and to be completely honest, though it's by no mean a very flattering statement, the specimen himself can't bring himself to wholeheartedly disagree. One has to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, after all, and you can't be a brave, gentlemanly, dashing bloke _and_ have a brain like that Spinoza chap at the same time.

Though Bertie Wooster might not be able to compete with a philosopher, he still isn't completely dumb. Can take him some time to take a hint, maybe, but he's not _blind_, and when something is staring at him in the face, the hint he does take. And this time, even Bertie can tell that something excessively, fundamentally wrong is going on.

It starts with small things. The sun gets up every morning just like it jolly should, and here comes good old Jeeves with the good old cuppa ("I say, old thing, I know this new blend you've found is supposed to do wonders for the Wooster corpus and all, but it does taste a little bitter"), the breakfast tray, the newspaper and a few comments about the weather ("warm and sunny this morning, sir"). It feels like every morning, and yet, it doesn't. First, there's that goddamn umbrella that will not be found. He can't for the life of him remember where he could have put it. He can see himself clearly, just a few days ago, carrying the irritating thing in all it's navy, ivory-handled glory, and then, poof, it's not there anymore. Such occurrences happen often, so he doesn't alarm himself, it's not the first time he will have misplaced some random item. He'll probably stumble upon it in a few months, behind the chesterfield or under the bed, though he's already looked there. But then there are the gloves. And three packs of cigarettes. A hat, several books, his favourite gold-plated pen, and even a coat.

Things keep slipping from his fingers at an alarming rate, and when he tries to search his mind for what could have happened to them, all he finds is a steadfastly growing black hole. It feels like it's slowly eating its way through his brain, engulfing more and more of his memory every day. But it's only a few lost possessions, after all, so he doesn't think too much of it. It's probably just the old B.W. brain making a fuss about nothing much, as it often does, so there's nothing to fret over. Besides, all he needs to do to recover the blasted items is ask Jeeves, and the marvellous fellow produces them with quiet flourish and an indulgent twitch of the eyebrow. But it's becoming a bit embarrassing, and more and more frequently he can't bring himself to ask.

The situation gets a little more troubling when one morning, Bertie wakes up, gulps down the good old cuppa, gets dressed, and suddenly finds that he can't remember for the life of him what it was that he was planning to do today ("a few clouds on the horizon, sir, I'm afraid that a little drizzle might be due before the end of the afternoon"). He had plans, he's sure, he was telling Jeeves about it just yesterday evening over the b. and s., but now they seem to have slipped his mind entirely, and all he can do is pace his room with a confused frown, dressed and ready, but for what? Eventually the paragon of all valets pushes him in the right direction with a quiet and unobtrusive "If I may, sir, I think you should leave in the course of the next ten minutes if you want to be on time for your meal with mister Little", and Bertie lets out a relieved breath, saying yes, yes of course old thing, don't worry, I was just going to. It's a lie of course, but what could he say? I'm sorry, Jeeves, but I've been as forgetful as uncle Henry just before he kicked the bucket of late? Jeeves, would you know by chance where I could have misplaced my brain?

Jeeves, I'm afraid I'm losing my mind.

But it's probably nothing, nothing to worry about, nothing nothing at all, and even if the Wooster onion might not be at its peak these days, it's alright. Jeeves is here to take care of everything.

XXX

The mornings keep coming in order, with tea and toast and weather reports as they should, but the hot china cup on the familiar lacquered tray seems to be the only tangible comfort in Bertie Wooster's world lately. Every morning he wakes up a little more tired, the old onion feeling a little heavier, a little more cloudy and uncertain. The mere idea of getting up is exhausting, and he constantly feels like there's something he should be noticing, close but just far enough to be out of his reach. Sometimes he feels like he's got the tip of his finger on it, there, there it is, he's got it! But no, he hasn't, and it slips away with the maddening regularity of a wave licking the shore.

There still are things to busy himself with, people to see, problems that aren't his to solve, aunts to fear and potential matches to run from. Bingo, bless the old chap's fickle heart, can't stay away from trouble in skirts and girdles for more than about five seconds, and there's always more disastrous plots to execute, more panicked flailing around to do as things take a predictable turn for the worse. Until Jeeves makes everything right again, that is. Good old Jeeves, proverbial rock in the middle of every storm. Always strong, always reliable, never lacking in times of need. Without good old Jeeves, where would poor old Bertie be? Probably fastened to the side of some Glossop-like creature, or even lying in a gutter somewhere, cold, famished and in dire need of sartorial advice. He feels that truth even more acutely these days, now that the littlest things have become so strangely threatening and unsteady.

Even the old fiancée-escaping and suchlike escapades are starting to feel trite, though. Not that he ever asked for any of them, and he certainly never wished for predatory, matrimony-obsessed aunts, but he's got to concede to something akin to a little thrill. While it's happening it's always like the whole world's out to trip poor Bertie Wooster, with evil cackle and all the accessories, and, by all means, it doesn't feel so dandy. But afterwards, looking back, there's always a good laugh to be had, usually reclined in his favourite armchair with a good dose of b. and s. or the faithful cup of tea. If his life is something, it's certainly not dull, right, old chap, he'll chuckle, and certainly Sir, I doubt anyone could ever deny that.

But not anymore. Nowadays when Bingo calls or when he finds the occasional spouse-seeking female on his doorstep, he doesn't even feel the small rush of familiar – though slightly tame, because after all things have always resolved themselves in the end up to now – panic and the need to flee to the other side of the globe. No fantastic and elaborate ideas that will undoubtedly reveal themselves catastrophic when put into action. All that's there is a sort of weariness he's never really felt before, and a kind of half-heartedly anxious "well, what again". He surprises himself a little when, after a call from aunt Agatha, he just turns to Jeeves, who's been standing behind him the whole time, and asks with the voice of a child, almost tamely: "What should I do?" There used to be a little more fire in the Wooster corpus. Or at least, he used to be a little subtler about it, more convoluted, because asking for help outright like he can't handle things by himself leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

But he's not all that surprised, really, because after all, he knows how it's going to end, doesn't he? It's always the same, he blunders and stumbles until he admits to himself that the wisest thing to do is to listen to the voice of reason, aka one tall, dark-haired manservant who might be a little conservative in the fashion department, and who most probably knew what the whole thing was about from the beginning anyway, and was just waiting in the shadows for his stubborn employer to admit what's right to unfold his master plan. He's just skipping a few painful and entirely unnecessary and avoidable steps. Surely there's no shame in sparing himself the trouble. And everything is set right again, surprisingly quickly and effortlessly for once.

A few days later the phone rings, and Jeeves says, in his smooth and efficient voice, that Sir, if Sir has nothing against it, would probably do best by letting him answer the phone from now on.

"Of course, old man. Of course."

Curiously, the occurrences in which people come to him for help, blackmail or even attempts to rope him in holy union seem to significantly lessen shortly thereafter.

As a matter of fact, these days, hardly anyone seems to call him at all.

XXX

More mornings, more cups on trays and more weather reports and tea and toast, cloudy sunny stormy, your tea Sir, drink it while it's hot. Mostly unpleasant weather these days, it seems, much of that typical and nasty English drizzle, or at least that's what he's told, because to be honest Bertie hasn't been out much lately. He's been a little sick, nothing serious, no need even to call the doctor, but Jeeves said it sounded like he might be coming down with a cold, and that he should probably stay in bed for a little while. The wise chap even provided preventive medicine himself, and started taking up his meals to his rooms. Such an asset, this Jeeves, indeed, such a gem.

That was a few days ago, three he thinks, or no, maybe five? Something like that. A week? Might have been a week, now that he thinks about it. Jolly, this cold must have been more serious than he thought. He'll have to ring the club to let them know he's alright, and that he'll be dropping by soon. Better, he'll have Jeeves ring them for him. He'll know exactly what to say. To be truthful, Bertie's not completely sure about how one goes about that kind of thing anymore. It feels somewhat complicated, all this social interacting and whatnots, and certainly it didn't feel that tricky before, so how come now he's at loss when he tries to tie the words together in his head? Must be the cold, making him all mushy and fuzzy in the head. Good thing Jeeves noticed it and took the necessary measures, because it seems he's sicker than he thought.

Ah, Jeeves. He's certainly been taking terribly good care of the Wooster person, hasn't he? Well, of course, it's always been the case, that he's the finest specimen of hired help on earth is no novel concept, but even more so recently. It's like he runs the whole household single-handedly, and when one thinks of it, indeed he does. It's not like one needs any other kind of servants when one has a Jeeves. He cooks, and what a cook, may one add, he dusts and mops and polishes the silver, or at least Bertie assumes he does, since everything is always mysteriously sparkling clean, but he can never catch him cleaning, even in his own bedroom. Maybe he comes in to clean at night, when the Wooster persona lies in the arms of Morpheus, like a fairy. Jeeves the house fairy. Now, he wonders how the good fellow would feel about that particular nickname.

But Jeeves doesn't only take care of the basic, purely materialistic aspects of the household. He also picks books for him to read and points out the interesting parts of the newspaper, brings back no ends of useful or even merely aesthetically pleasant items for the house when he goes shopping, advises him on all the little troubles and affairs of everyday life, and even purchases his clothes for him and picks out which ones he should wear every morning before he helps him getting dressed. Once in a while Bertie, driven by an odd urge to speak up, wonders aloud if the grey suit on grey shirt with grey tie on top isn't, not that I mean to criticize your taste old chap, well a tiny little bit dull and conservative, certainly a touch of colour couldn't hurt, a little purple, a little yellow, maybe even an interesting pattern, just for the sake of being a little fashionably silly once in a while, didn't I have some of those in my wardrobe before?

"But Sir, these suit you so well." Jeeves says, arching a cultured eyebrow, his voice mild but firm. And Bertie has to agree, you're right my good man, you're always right, I was being daft.

While they're absorbed in that particular occupation, there's a sound that he hasn't heard in a while, and ah, dear me, it's the doorbell. He starts to rush the process when his faithful aide stops him with a quiet nod, and he nods back dimly as the Jeevesian frame disappears through the threshold.

Two voices soon rise from downstairs, not loud enough to make out the words, but still loud enough to make out the tone. One of them is heated and spirals gradually to downright angry shouting, while the other one is as cool and controlled as ever. He imagines a man shaking his fist and going red in the face, while his valet stares at him with his frog-stuffed face. There is no use in shouting at Jeeves. Who would want to shout at Jeeves anyway? Though the voice does sound a little familiar… The calm voice says something a little more loudly, and then both participants in the discussion become very quiet for a few seconds before the door finally slams shut, tranquillity descending once again on the house.

"Who was that?" He inquires as Jeeves comes back into the room.

"No one." He answers firmly, and gets back to the task of helping him button his shirt.

XXX

Bertie wakes up in the middle of the night, queasy and drenched in cold sweat, with a lancing pain in his gut and between his temples, feeling acutely that something horribly wrong is going on. He doesn't know exactly what it is, but there's a voice screaming in the back of his mind, shouting words that he can't understand, but somehow he catches the overall tone of the thing and it sounds like a red-faced man shaking his fist. Alarm bells are going of loudly all over his nervous system, setting off the instinct, no, the urge to flee, to flee fast and far away, though he doesn't exactly know what he's running from. Get away get away get away _now_, the voice hollers, now that he discerns a little more of what it's saying.

He stumbles out of bed, tries to catch himself on the bedside table without success and crashes on the floor, bringing the furniture down with him, bedside lamp and bedside novel and bedside glass of water shattering on the floor in a rain of broken glass and soggy paper – drizzle this afternoon, _Sir_. A small line of scarlet blood trickles down his palm where a shard of glass has embedded itself like an ivory handle, sodden pages where black melts into grey crumple under his throbbing knees, and he can feel a blue-black bruise unfolding itself like an umbrella where his shoulder hit the bed frame. He propels himself up on limp, flaccid legs, gripping the mattress for support, nausea dancing a tarantella behind his burning eyelids.

The first tentative step is a struggle against the laws of gravity, against the deadly telephone cord coiling itself around his gut, ring, ring, ring – for the best, _Sir_. The second step doesn't happen, and he collapses again like a wilted flower, but those screams, _God what have you done to me_, so he clenches his fists and grits his teeth and crawls on his hands and knees. He staggers down the staircase in a mindless pursuit for the door, aware somewhat dazedly that he's making a terrible racket, but unable to concentrate on anything else than the raw need to escape, the house around him encased in a cloud of cotton fog.

He lands, almost rolls at the bottom of the stairs, panting through the ice-cold fingers that are constricting his throat and pressing down on his lungs. Puff, gasp, wheeze. Where were we. Leaving, running from… from who? _Murder betrayal no it can't be true but then why how WHY?_

Suddenly there's a warm, dry hand settling on his shoulder, gently but firmly, in an almost non-grip that he would nonetheless be unable to shrug off would he have the strength to try, guiding him away from his original goal in the direction of the kitchen.

"I…" Bertie frantically stammers, words suddenly nothing but an alien presence aimlessly rolling about in his dry mouth, resisting him, melting together until they make no sense, "need to… have to do something…"

"Hush." A low, deep and comforting voice pacifies him, while the hand, having called a sister to her aid, sets about easing him into a chair. "You're having a panic attack."

"You don't understand!" Bertie cries, feeling that the voice must be an ally, and desperate to relate his predicament, though he does not himself understand it. "There's something wrong! I need to go!"

"Be at ease, Sir. Everything is fine." For a second, the reassuring presence deserts his side, and he cries out weakly, feeling cold and abandoned. Why was he running in the first place? He doesn't want to be alone. The voice is warm, and the touch on his shivering body warmer still. Please don't leave him alone. He's afraid of what he might find.

The presence comes back, and presses a cup filled to the brim with hot liquid into his hands. "Rest easy, Sir. I will never leave your side. There. Drink up." He's trembling, and the hands gently take the cup back from his shaky grip, raising the cup to his mouth to make him drink like a baby. "It will warm you up."

"Hurts." Bertie whimpers, his voice sounding to his ears like the feeble mewl of a sick kitten.

"It seems I did get a little carried away with the last dose." The voice states , tone comforting in its solid, stable quality, though he doesn't understand the meaning. "I am most terribly sorry. It was never my intention to hurt you in any way, Sir. The pain should recede very shortly." The cup is taken away, for good this time, and the warm hand rises to stroke his hair, soft and tender in its care.

Bertie realizes that somewhere along the line he's started crying, pathetic, muffled sobs that disgust him to the core. He wishes he could wrench them from the base of his throat, wrench this feeling of utter helplessness from his being like a bad tooth. But he still can't seem to manage to think straight, words blurring together and colliding with each other with muted sounds and blinding sparks. "This is not right!" He spits out, pulling together the remnants of his will with a death grip, trying to find the white thread out of the labyrinth, to the exit, to his sanity.

"What is, Sir? Everything is in its right place. Everything is at is should be." The hand in his hair tightens its grip almost but not quite painfully, and he feels himself being lifted like a child and gently pushed against the kitchen table, face down, half-lying on his belly against the cold wood. His silk pyjamas rustle quietly in the silence of the night as they slide against his bare body as they are almost reverently stripped from him, and this time the fingers slipping in his gasping mouth, choking him, are almost too hot to bear.

There's nothing gentle, though, about the way short and blunt nails dig in his hips and jerk them back, then forward, about the way his stomach is rhythmically shoved against the edge of the table and his forearms hit the hard surface, trying to brace his weight, trying to keep himself from collapsing completely and never getting up again.

Idly, at the back of his mind, appears the thought that he's fighting against something, for something, and that he needs to keep it up, carry on, don't let yourself be washed up on the shore like a shattered message bottle that has lost its contents. But it's hard to struggle when you keep forgetting what you're struggling for, and soon there's no room for anything apart that odd, almost unbearable feeling filling him gradually from the inside every time his hipbones bump into the wood, pleasurepain, inexorably sweeping away every remaining thought in his already raw and wind-swept mind.

Hold on, he manages to utter mentally one last time, until his taut muscles finally give in and he falls down and down and down…

"Sleep. It was just a nightmare."

XXX

"Good morning, Sir."

"Good morning, Jeeves!" Bertie smiles broadly, his eyes cheerfully empty, and sits up against the headboard while the valet places the tray on the beside table. "How are we doing today?"

"Quite well, Sir." He answers, before pouring the tea in the cup in a swift and almost graceful gesture. He reaches across the bed to straighten the pillows behind the other man's back, and Bertie leans forward obligingly. "The weather is pleasant at the moment, but it seems a shower is due sometime this afternoon. It would be a wise course of action to stay inside." He adds with a meaningful glance.

"Certainly, certainly. You know best, old thing. Anything of importance I need to concern myself with?"

Jeeves smiles.

"You have nothing to worry about, Sir. Leave everything to me."

XXX

Now, for the unnecessarily long, but traditional author rant, and before you decide to pelt me with sharp rocks.

I know canon Jeeves mostly intends well, and would probably never lift a finger to hurt the master whom we all know he wuvs and cherishes and wishes to take to bed and make genetically impossible but cute babies with. But. See it that way. Our favourite valet is nothing if not a control freak, and though he does mean well, he definitely has the tendency to thinks that he is always right and other people should just shut up. Which is often true, but no matter. Now if we skip the step between _thinking_ that the world, or at least a certain airheaded aristocrat's life, would be in much better order if people would let him manage it, and _actually_ taking the matter into his own hands... Why, everyone, or at least someone, would certainly be much better off if they just let him make all the decisions.

Yeees, I can so see him headed right for world domination, if only because he's annoyed with the way people can't seem to be able to manage their affairs properly.

As for the rape thing, which might be a little over the top, well. Evil!Jeeves taking advantage of helpless!Bertie makes me hot. Yes, I am a twisted person. I know I'm not the only one. Yes, I'm talking about you, there. Don't lie. Nobody can resist evil!Jeeves and his dastardly but subtle ways.

Now, if you still found this story offensive for a reason or another, please feel free to tell me the how, why, and anything else. You can also tell me if you didn't, and in that case, _please_ feel free to write a ten pages essay on the how and the why and anything else. That was a dastardly but subtle way to ask for feedback, if you couldn't tell. Of course I'm not serious about the ten pages essay. Eight will do.


End file.
